I hate being hurt

Which is exactly what I am right now. I went to bed Saturday night with a slightly sore back. I awoke an hour later in serious pain and found I could not sit up or stand up. So, I rolled myself out of bed and then pulled myself up to first a kneeling and then, after much pain and time, a standing position. The process took multiple minutes and involved enough pain to make me grunt, cry out, and tear up. Wow, did it hurt.

I repeated this process several times before I gave up trying to sleep any more.

Thanks to some persuasion by Jennie, her chiropractor opened his office on Sunday, when he would normally be enjoying a day off, and saw me. He worked on me then and again this morning. I'm slowly getting better, but the emphasis is definitely on slowly. I can't sit or stand without significant pain, and the transitions between positions are amazingly bad.

Of course, in the interest of full disclosure I should note that I am not following the doctor's instructions. He wanted me to spend the first twenty-four hours on my back, with ice for fifteen minutes every hour, and I just could not do that. He also wanted me not to sit at all. Not sitting basically equals not working, so no way could I follow that part of the program. I did as best I could, I finished the work I had to do (including the day's writing, of course), and as a result I'm probably healing more slowly than I would have. I hate it, but so it goes. The work must go on.

This attitude, by the way, caused Jennie to remark, "You have the common sense God gave a barnacle." She and Sarah now refer to me as Barnacle Man or, if in a very good mood, Commodore Barnacle. The first sounds like a particularly sad superhero, while the second strikes me as the fleet commander in a Napoleonic naval parody, so given a choice--which, of course, I never get--I'd opt for the former.

To illustrate my astonishing good sense, I will see the chiropractor the next two mornings, then head Thursday for Baltimore, Balticon, some fine meals, time with fan friends, time with Kyle and the UFC Saturday night PPV, and much more. The doctor said healing should take three to four weeks. I'm giving my back until Thursday morning to return to normal. It better listen up.

Oh, in case you're wondering how I injured myself, the truth is, I have no clue. I must have sat wrong for a long period of time, which is how I hurt my back the last two times. Amazing.